... The Pearl Fishers WELSH NATIONAL OPERA THE DECISION of the Welsh National Opera to revive its production of The Pearl Fishers, is a happy one indeed. With what amounts to a new cast and a dynamic French conductor making his debut with the company, the John Moody production has not only? been given a new lease of life, but improved enormously. Opera buffs tend to be a trifle patronising about ...

... Paco Pena EDINBURGH IN ALL the portentous phraseology of artistic criticism from the Edin burgh Festival two words rarely appear. They are happy and entertainment. Let us acknowledge nrstly that in tne late night performance given by Paco Pena's Flamenco Puro at the Royal Lyceum there is rich entertainment and that the singers, dancers and guitarists are happy in their work. Like all folk ...

... Orpheus in the Underworld ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA WENDY TOYE'S absurd, enchanting. ridiculous, anachronistic, ingenious, occasionally fussy and childish English National Opera production of Orpheus in the Underworld, with its lively dancing culminating in a furious can-can that stops the show before its real? curtain-time, came to the Coliseum again on December 14. It took some time to reach ...

... 'Yatran' Ukrainian Dance Company WEMBLEY THE Wembley Conference Centre, with its very large platform stage, was the setting for the first appearance in London, on December 17, of the Yatran Ukrainian Dance Company. They have just completed a short tour of five other towns and. to judge from their reception in London, will be welcome any time they care to return. It is basically a folk-dance ...

... Rainbow Bandit LONDON CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATRE LAST NEW WORK in the London Contemporary Dance Theatre's season at Sadler's Wells was Richard Alston's Rainbow Bandit on December 8. The first ten minutes are per formed in silence on a bare stage, the dancers each wearing a different shade from the spectrum working almost casually through some limbering-up exercises in a seem ingly ...

... Double bill CITY LIT OPERA JOSEPH Horowitz's dramatic scene Lady Macbeth was given its stage premiere in 1974 by the City Lit Opera and was revived between June 21 and 24 for Marie Wood, The text is taken from the first of Lady Macbeth's scenes and part of the Duncan murder exchange and Banquo apparition scene but leaves out the sleep-walking scene entirely, rather oddly in one way. ...

... Current Production IN TOWN THE ROCK GARDEN is presenting a special evening performance of the rock theatre show Subulubu on July 9. This Mayday Theatre production includes Sharon Campbell. John Rust, and Hugh Portnow in the cast. The music is by John Ottman. THE COMPANY of Three is presenting Dracula, which opens at the South Western Hotel. Hounslow tonight (Thursday). Timothy Webster ...

... Ballet Rambert ON ONE OF ITS all too infrequent visits to Manchester the Ballet Rambert recently staged a programme which included two works unlikely to be seen in London at the Opera Theatre of the Royal Northern College of Music. These were Window, a work for a dancer by Sara Sugihara to blues guitar music composed by John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Peter Lang, and Musical Offering, ...

... Fosdyke II BUSH SON of Fosdyke Saga, Fosdyke II has burst into the Bush until the end of the year, when it goes on a three-month tour in companionship with its predecessor. Bill Tidy and Alan Plater once more have combined a sort of gritty two-dimensional form with theatrical verve and the new company has its measure just as surely as did the first group. Bernard Wrigley's music alone ...

... Sexual Perversity in Chicago REGENT Opened December 1 THERE'S something rather endearing about two ageing Americans sitting on a park bench, alternatively waxing lyrical, and getting hot under the collar, about ducks. Such is the appeal that one can even excuse them dialogue which sounds at a number of points remarkably reminiscent of a shopping list as when they reel off (each item being ...

... La Boheme WELSH NATIONAL OPERA WITH the premiere unexpectedly changed into a public preview (and the audience offered half their money back plus priority booking for next March) and the actual first night falling on the last night of their two-week season, the Welsh National Opera's new production of La Boheme hardly got away to the happiest of starts Nevertheless it proved well worth ...

... THE LONDON Mime Festival, a considerable success at the begin ning of this year, will be held at the Cockpit from January 4 to February 4. featuring shows by leading per formers from Britain and abroad. Those announced so far include Nola Rae, Desmond Jones. Moving Pic ture Mime Show, Peter Wyssbrod, Katie Duck, Jango Edwards, Le Groupe du Grand Reveur and Milan Sladek. ...